Reflection of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Now I want to start by saying that any form of enslavement is inhumane and lacks justifiable means. The enslavement of entire cultures has been the discussion for hundreds of years, but when I learned about slavery growing up it was only about Africans and how they were captured and brought to the Americas by Europeans. Nowhere in the studies did it mention Indians, the Spanish, tribes/kingdoms/villages or a trade route that didn’t include the Atlantic. So it seems to me as if there was a lot more missing from the stories that we were told and the facts missing hold some severe weight. The enslavement of Africans by other Africans is on of the biggest facts of them all. 

The words slave and slavery are met with a seriously negative connotation, as they should be, but not every individual views it the same. Before continuing it may help to note that the people of Africa do not view themselves as an entire culture but rather separate nations, so what happens to Liberia is no concern of Chad, even though they are neighbors. And before saying that makes no sense, its pretty similar in America as well. What goes on in New Jersey is no concern of Georgia, unless it effects them directly. We don’t go around telling people we are American, well except when someone is telling another to go back to their country (story for another day), we tell them the city or state we are from. So when wars and raids happened between villages and the village inhabitants were captured they were made slaves to whomever reigned over them. But not all slaves were prisoners of war. Some slaves were in debt to royals or monarchs ( so they were working to pay off a debt), some were of a different religion, and you had people who were considered “aliens” to a village and therefore they were enslaved. No matter the reason for their enslavement slaves were sold to Muslims and the people of Spain or Europe. So the trade of slaves were only taking place between the countries of Spain and Europe with the traders of the coast of West Africa. The Americas had yet to come into play because it had not been “discovered”. 

See, African slaves were not yet introduced to the Americas yet because Christopher Columbus had yet to stumble upon the Americas, therefore the TransAtlantic Slave Trade had yet to exist. So in comes the enslavement of Indians and the mass takeover and wipe out of an entire culture. And it was all done in the name of Christianity coming from both the Europeans and Spanish. You would think that because these countries are so devoted to God and the welfare of humanity that they would not partake in such things as forced labor but it seemed as though slaves were not considered human. Think about Christopher Columbus and how he enslaved Indians in the name of his religion, Christianity. Using religion as the reason for enslaving entire cultures seemed to be the norm during these times. Columbus believed that because the Indians did not pray to a particular God they would have no quarrels with converting to Christianity. Now how he knew that with the language barrier is beyond me, but I digress. It was the same way with Spain and their Catholic faith. They even went so far as to make an entire document to read to the Indians when taking over their land. Although this document was created it was read only partially if at all when mass amounts of lands were being seized. But even with the capture of Indians Spain and Europe were still having issues with meeting demands for the labor departments of agriculture and mining.The TransAtlantic Slave Trade would soon change that. 

Once the TransAtlantic Slave Trade began there started to be an abundance of Africans in the Americas. There would become a point in time, between 1492 and 1820, when there was five times as many African slaves than Europeans in the Americas. Although those numbers may seem high the percentages of deaths were astounding. During the travel over the land roughly 20% of slaves would parish, another 15-30% would die upon waiting for slave ships or during capture and many more would die at sea, with their remains being found all through the Atlantic Ocean. The number of deaths however did not deter the traders from proceeding with their journey. This is likely to the fact that the selling of slaves turned over a very high profit, the more labor that you could get out of a salve the better the price. That fact is probably why two-thirds of the slaves in the New Word were males. Slaves were so profitable that they had become tax write-offs and documented property of their owners. 

It’s sad and shameful to write such things about a human. To think that people were considered property or chattel is absurd and appalling but nonetheless true. Deeply rooted within the ancestry of entire continents. Because while the rise in slavery helped with the development of other cultures and multiple continents/countries it was the demise of two other cultures. Cultures that helped to establish agriculture, technology, arts and many other things. And although the Europeans and Spain did not play a huge role with the capture of African slaves, they did their part in selling/buying them as well as the enslavement of the Native culture. So a few important things to take away from this reading is that slaves were not always captured by Europeans or Spain (more so by their neighboring and fellow Africans for a multitude of reasons) but could be bought of the coast of West Africa during and before the TransAtlantic Trade, religion was used as a means to enslave different cultures and Africans who sold into slavery were seen as a trade good or property and not human beings or as fellow Africans.  

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3569

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=445

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3571